Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 203 | an unbelievable marriage (literally)

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Today we sat down with Anil Menon, SpaceX’s first flight surgeon and his wife, Anna Menon, a Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX! So let’s just say, this couple is really smart and had a lot of interesting things to share. It’s not every day we get to interview people who work on sending people to space, so this was really cool! In the words of Andrew’s dad joke “This interview was out of this world!” haha so cheesy but we hope you enjoy! :) Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. What's up everybody? Welcome back to a couple things with Sean and Andrew a podcast all about couples and the things they go through these might be my two new favorite people in the world most inspirational most amazing geniuses how did we get an interview with these guys? I don't know and at the end they're like listen to your podcast I was like why so ridiculous today we have Anna and Anil Menon who are actual astronauts Like real ones

Active astronauts We asked them and look this up too There are 42 active astronauts right now And we sat down with two of them They're married What are the odds of that But Anil is SpaceX's first flight surgeon And his wife Anna

Is a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX And Annel was just announced And named as a NASA astronaut Which is even crazier And Anna is going on Polaris-Dawn space mission Yeah. She tells the story. Can you believe?

I don't know. I don't know. Anil is also a pilot, like a really good one. Anyway, let's just say that this couple is super smart and they had a lot of interesting things to share. We talked about space, yes. We talked about how they got to where they are. But also, there's a lot of carryover into parenting.

Yes. And we talked about their physical fitness achievements and routines. It was great. I think some of my biggest takeaways, too, with them was just their philosophy and outlook on parenting and taking risks and fostering interests and passions with themselves and with their kids and exposing their kids to so much. It was, I loved it. I did too. Let's just say this interview was out of this world. Okay.

Anyway, Anil, Anna, thank you so much for your time. We hope you listening and enjoy. If we want to find out more about what these two are up to, we'll link their information down below. I would highly recommend it. Yeah. Would highly recommend it. And we got the approval to call them friends. So thank you, guys.

We hope you enjoy this one with Anna and Anil Minnan. Anil and Anna, it is so nice to meet you. This interview has been months in the making. I am extremely nervous. I'm also super excited. I feel like you are every child's hero. You're every adult's hero, even. You're my hero.

I'm literally being Anna's costume. for Halloween. And it's pretty awesome. But how are you guys today? We are great. And we are just so grateful to get to be here. So happy to get to talk to you both. Thanks for having us. Oh, man. Yeah, super sad. I also want to correct my husband for calling Anna's uniform a costume. Oh, shoot. We just started. Arnda. Yeah. Your Andrew, yours is a costume Hers is a professionally earned

uniform I am so sorry The other point of clarification was the intent to be scary on Halloween Oh man Is there a difference between the blue and the green? There is a difference So NASA astronauts

Traditionally wear the blue flight suits For our mission We have traditionally, I'm playing with Claristan, Mission to Space, and we have traditionally worn black flight suits. They're more SpaceX colors, right? Yes. I think it's like football. Okay.

Yeah. I feel like we've interviewed like musicians and athletes and stuff. And to me, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. I feel like when you're in kindergarten and people are like, what do you want to be when you grow up? We all say astronauts. How did you guys actually get there?

You pulled it out. Oh, man. Yeah, I was the kid who wanted to do it super early on. I can remember being five and seeing this IMAX movie where it was called The Dream is Alive and there was this astronaut going down a slide wire, one working in space. And I thought, that's the kind of job I want. It's full of adventure. People actually do that. And that job just transforms over your life. At times, it seems out of reach. At times, it seems like something that's a guiding light carrying me forward. Like, I really want to get into STEM and science and do things that help me be better prepared and have an opportunity to do it. And I just stuck with it for a very, very long time. And I just kept thinking space was cool. So when I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to do medicine, but I also knew I wanted to do space. And so I just tried to figure out how do you do those two things.

Turns out there's doctors that work at NASA. And so I did it, learn more, and stayed with it, and finally had an opportunity to fly. I didn't think, like, I thought it was a low probability, but it just kind of followed my love and passion. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally,

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That's honestly the most inspirational message. I feel like you could give where it's, you know, it seems like it's far off, this massive, big goal. but you keep putting one foot in front of the other, I feel like, and, you know, one act or getting involved in one way leads you to the next thing, and you slowly chip away. I mean, from start to finish, in your career, how long has it taken you to get to this point?

Like, with this as the focus? 45 years when I got selected. I suppose if you counted, I started at 6, maybe 39 years. But I think, I think, actually, that's a true story for most. of the folks that I work with and most of the astronauts because the age of selection is in the 30s in general. It varies. People are under 30. People are over 40. I was over 40. But they definitely just put in, followed their dream for a long, long time and grew in that and what they were good at. So I would say for me, during the medical pathway, that's four years of medical

school, three years of emergency medicine, a wilderness fellowship, an aerospace fellowship, another three years, and then just working within the field and working at some commercial companies, working at NASA as a flight surgeon, was the rest of the time. But it was never, it was just a joy to do a lot of that because it's just, it's so cool. And I think it's such an important field for society. Dude, I'm so glad that humans like this exists. This gives me hope to a whole race. It's like, man, first, if it all goes, if things go South. I want to kneel in my corn. He's going to know all the, it's going to know how to fly me out of the situation. He knows everything. Wilderness. What is a wilderness fellowship? I want to do that

right now. Oh, man, you totally should. If you like that. Yeah, there you go. It's doing medicine without all the resources that you normally have. So working in the Himalayas, if someone gets hurt there, you don't have a CT scan, you got to figure out how to improvise, make a splint out of some handkerchiefs, kind of like those things. And you could totally do it. They have wilderness first aid courses anyone can take and they teach those kind of skills. Knowles is another example of a leadership course that's in the wilderness that you learn those kind of things.

It's a lot of fun. Now, Anna, how did you find yourself here? I also have a story of following my passion for a long time. So I first fell in love with space. When I was in about fourth grade, I grew up in Houston and so was exposed to NASA and human spaceflight from a very young age. I had the chance to go on a field trip to experience a day in the life of an astronaut and a flight controller. And we spent half the day as one and half the day as the other. And so served in mission control and then served in the spaceship. And for me, that lit a fire in

me to contribute to this industry and want to be a part of it with my career. And so I just followed that love for years. So as I went along in school, I pursued industries that I was interested in. So I got a degree in college in math. And then I got a master's degree in biomedical engineering. And I loved math and I loved medicine and I loved engineering. But I also carried with me this love of space. And so that whole time I was trying to figure out how to meld all of these interests together. And I was then so excited to get a job at NASA coming out of grad school where I got to be a biomedical flight controller for the International Space Station. And what that did was this wonderful blend of all of these interests. And I was so thrilled to get to work there for

seven years and be a part of the industry. And I was just so happy to get to contribute. And after that, I moved over to SpaceX, where I've now been an engineer for about five years, and the whole time getting to contribute to human spaceflight, work in mission control as a mission director there, develop operations that are astronauts do in our capsules, and the whole time just pinching myself because I just love this industry so much and feel so grateful to get to be a part of it. And, you know, carried with me this childhood dream of flying to space, but also just so grateful to get to be a part of the industry. And one day I went into a meeting and out of the blue, they asked me to fly to space

on the Polaris-on mission to space. And as one of the first times, the first time that SpaceX will ever fly its own people, its own engineers as a part of a mission. And I was just floored, shocked, but just so grateful. and it reignited that childhood dream in me and I have just been so shocked at the, you know, the turn of events over time, but forever grateful to get to be a part of this industry

in any way, shape, and form all along the way. You walked into this meeting, not knowing what is about, and you walked out going to space. Can you tell us more about this? Like, what did they say? Was there confetti? Was there like a hype video? I'd even know more.

Well, they put a meeting on my calendar. I had contributed to a mission previously as a part of SpaceX, as an engineer at SpaceX, called Inspiration 4, which was the first all-civilian mission to space under the commander, Jared Isaacman. And I'd been a part of that mission, and they put a meeting on my calendar saying, hey, we want to debrief some lessons learned from that meeting and talk about some future thoughts. And I walked into this meeting and Jared was sitting there and my boss was sitting there and a number of other people and we are, you know, chatting for a few minutes and actually just three days prior, Anil had been announced as a NASA astronaut. And so we talked a little bit about that and then very quickly they said, hey, would you like to fly to space on the Polaristan mission? And I remember my heart just started beating so fast, and I was so shocked. So grateful, obviously. And, you know, so many emotions all at once, told them thank you, went home, talked to my family about it, and very quickly thereafter said yes.

Okay, I have so many questions. Okay. So first, forgive me for being, for not. knowing this but well have you have either of you been to space yet not yet okay oh okay even better so the dynamic between you two you're married you have two children correct you walk into a meeting and you're told you're going how does that register for you guys being parents spouses how like how do you digest that information from being excited, all of it. Yeah, you know, I think we are really thoughtful about this. We have a really

big philosophy in our family of open communication. So, you know, first and foremost, we took it back home and talked about it. We talked about it with our family, talked about it a lot with each other, and we continue to to this day. And I think that one of the things that has been a really strong aspect of these decisions for us is that we have a tremendous amount of trust. We have both spent years working at NASA and years working at SpaceX. And so we have seen how people develop hardware, software, operations, fly missions. We have great faith in the processes that are used. And so that allows us to move forward carrying a tremendous amount of trust. But I think, you know, on the personal, emotional side, I think there is a universal

change that happens in you when you become a parent. I think you become much more aware of your mortality, your legacy, the fact that it's not just you in the world or even you and your partner, but you have kids. You have these little people in their futures. And so I think we carry that and take that responsibility really seriously. And at the same time, I think hand in hand, we recognize that there are some passions that are worth pursuing. And it's important to show our kids what it looks like to follow your passion. And so, you know, one way we have done that is we've integrated our kids into this experience. We have shared it with them as we are navigating the journey.

I got to bring them to some training where I was flying in fighter jets with my team, learning, you know, fast-paced decision-making communication skills. And Nils brought our kids to some spacewalk training where he's been in a space suit in the giant pool at NASA moving through the operations. And there's kind of two goals for this. One is for the present. it's a way that we are able to help them wrap their heads around what's going on and learn the why is the what's but then we are also always thinking about their futures and in trying to introduce them to all sorts of different aspects of the world around them so that hopefully along that journey sparks get lit in them just like one did for me as a little girl that helps them figure

out what their passion is in this world so that they can follow that with their lives Annel, are you aware of how many astronauts there are? Total, like lifetime or I think 600 people have flown to space total. Right now in our astronaut group, there's around a little over 40 total astronauts that are called active astronauts working at NASA. Some of the retired ones are doing different things in management at NASA or industry. And how many are there at SpaceX, Anna? So, there have been two SpaceX engineers who have been chosen to go to space. And it's myself and my colleague named Sarah, and we are both flying on this Blair stock mission.

So, too. So you're telling me there. I'm doing the mental math right now. So there's 42 active astronauts in this country of, call it 400 million people the odds of that i i also needed calculator help but um the odds of becoming an astronaut are point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero nine seven five that's what i was thinking think about that but yeah and then the odds of two of them ending up married yeah is just astounding did you guys meet within the program

No, we, you want to tell them that you met? We worked at NASA at one point, both of us, together at the same time in Houston. But we met somewhere else at an Oscars party that's not at the actual Oscars, but a party someone was throwing that was kind of like the Oscars and we were the pseudo people. So picture me, oddly enough, we were talking about blue, but I was wearing a powder blue tuxedo, two gold chains that cost $14 from Amazon, some run DMC. glasses and a purple cango that I had from maybe like my 90s rap era and I was pretending to be a rapper at this Oscars thing and talking to someone and Anna walked in and they were doing these fake interviews as people walked in and I walked up to her because she was this amazing wonderful woman and threw my arm around her invited her to my rap concert that was going to happen

at the Toyota Center, and she just rolled with it, which really surprised me. And when I figured out that she worked at NASA, the deal was sealed, I was like, this amazing person also shared some interest, and we really got along. And so I remember there was this Call Me Maybe song out then, and I, you know, Oh, yeah, Carly Ray. Oh, yeah. So good. Rebecca Black, I forget.

So I sent her a text right afterwards. because I was like, this is it. I'm sure this is it. And three days later, and we had been at NASA, never met each other. They put us at a space station simulation where you're trying to fix space station as it's flying out of the sky.

We were sitting side by side at work, so clearly we were meant to meet. And so I thought to myself, why I resist it? And luckily, she agreed. And that was kind of the start of everything. How wild of a coincidence is that, though? Well, how while have a party does this? Two, it sounds like I want to go to a party with a nail.

It's a good time. It is a, well, I'm curious, as athletes, there's a lot of kind of tangible feedback that we got along our careers at each checkpoint, kind of like middle school to high school, high school to like varsity, even within high school, you go JV to varsity to varsity to college. you're either going D1, two, or three in football, and then, like, it's slow, the, my point in saying this is the realization of, if my goal is the NFL, the realization of that coming true really kind of starts to take shape pretty early, and you kind of have a path laid in front of you. Is it similar in your line of work? Is there, is there like a crystallization process that happens of like, hey, this could be a real shot?

it literally, you know, you get a calendar notification and you're like, oh, bam, bam. And like, you're, I'm curious about that. I think it's tab at it. So I think there is some general similarities, a really broad level. But largely, I think Anna's story is a good example of you just follow your passion to some degree and you can't predict some of these outcomes. But if you put yourself there, things pan out. I think it was Louis Pasteur maybe, or I could be misquoting, but chance favors the prepared on some level.

But the broad similarity is that I've always held on to is just improving each day and finding a way to be a better version of myself in that work that I'm doing. And so I've always been one to just, as you did as an athlete, continue to grow, continue to figure out what that feedback chain is and where you need to go. But just do that within medicine, then do that within space medicine, and then do that in terms of developing, say, the approach to flying people to space in a commercial space company. And that was just a daily process of trying to do better. And there was tons of feedback out there. There was managers, mentors, people willing to help and help guide that way. But it wasn't as clear cut of a reassurance that this end outcome would be there.

But I think it's more applicable to general everyday life. Everyone can find a pathway to really improve in their direction. And you just don't know what will happen at the end of that. I have kind of a two-part question. and I want to be gentle in navigating this, so I don't want to spark arguments here, okay? You guys, usually, like, opposites attract, right? But you guys are very similar in the sense that you're in very similar fields.

Going after very similar dreams, is there any hardship in navigating that with each other and trying to support each other and not being a competition of who's going to get there first? and do you find conversations at home being difficult because you basically are coming home from the same workday? It seems like we're in similar fields, but I think we're very different in terms of personalities, and that's very complimentary, and it helps us a lot.

What we do value is shared time together, and we think it's super important for our relationship. So just spending that time really helps us. us build our relationship and helps us be there for our kids and spend time with them. So the things we do are very similar, whether it's work or outside of work, but we're just really different, and we find a way to bring that together. For example, Anna is a great salsa dancer and loves doing it, but I was always incredibly intimidated because she was on a professional team at Duke and super awesome at it. But I went and I learned to dance.

on a daily base like once a week or twice a week and finally got to the point where we actually had our wedding dance in front of 200 people doing salsa and it wasn't embarrassing as I thought initially it would be I think it went pretty well and then she'll do things like I love doing endurance exercises and I somehow convinced her on an anniversary to do a go ruck with me which was 12 hours of suffering in California and it was cold that day and we had to do burpees in the on the beach and get wet and sandy and I looked over her and I could tell she was on the fence about that decision on an anniversary, but she did it. And it's just kind of an example of her willingness to dive in there and find something that we both love and do together. But I think in terms of, you want to handle the second part in terms of... I think to me, all of that just speaks to, we actually really value having shared interests. And so for us, it has always been incredibly additive, whether it was, you know, at work. And we were getting to be just a couple cubicles apart.

It just, it has continued to give us ways to an opportunity to support each other, have shared friends, have shared challenges, speak the same language. And so it has just given us a lot of opportunities for support to give an example. We're no longer at the exact same workplace anymore, but I'm the medical officer on the Polaristan mission, and he obviously has a background in medicine, and so it has given us this way of, even at home, you talked about our evening conversations, like, I come home and I have this little ultrasound handheld device that I will need to use in space. And so he is able to teach me how to use it better, teach me the anatomy, help me improve. And so it's just a little. way that we have been able to continue to support each other and really grow together over the

course of the years. That's, wow. I love that. I've been thinking recently about how fortunate I feel to have Sean, I mean, we pretty much spend every second of every day together, and we kind of know what each other's capabilities are, what each other's weaknesses are as a result. And the idea of in a partnership like this, and it seems like you guys have. a similar dynamic where there's a depth of knowledge that you each have and a platform

in marriage that you can give like the truest, most honest feedback. The benefits of that are phenomenal where it's like she can, the stronger I can take her feedback, the better I could take it means the better feedback I can give her and the like the more input I can have which then it's like a virtuous cycle of now we're just really making each other better and stronger. And it's like responsibility and it can be very fragile. But when you are able to execute that well, I mean, look, maybe you'll end up as one of the 42, two of the 42. You guys have a monopoly on that whole business. That's great.

That's insane. I can't believe that. Oh, man. Anyway. Wait, out of curiosity, are there any rules around. like I know you guys are technically in different companies. Is that how I would say that? Okay. But would they ever send like mom and dad or husband and wife at the same time? Typically, no, not historically. And I think just the way it will work out for the two of us, even though we're in different places, it will, we will not fly at the same time. I'm slated to fly within months from now. And he is, his will probably be years down. the road so yeah and if that were an option i would take a serious pause and think about it yeah and right now my initial knee-jerk reaction would be to not do that myself just from a personal

family standpoint yeah i'm a big fan of uh of reading biographies and history and i've been reading the founding fathers and like reading benjamin franklin and is interesting a lot of these guys when they do pivotal things they'll you know they have these journey journals and letters that they'll write almost with the perspective that they know future generations will read them because what they're doing is so cool do you guys ever have those moments of reflection of like we're going to be in history books this is you know your role anna as a female astronaut is is incredible and so impressive and your your family will go down in history books between just the gravity of the situation and then also you're you're your family will go down in history books between just the gravity of the situation and then also you having kids and what Sean was talking about earlier, like that responsibility and just having moments of pause to think about whether you want to accept the mission or not. How often, how do you guys embed reflection in your, in your life? That's a great question. I think that for both of us, we both do a lot of journaling and, you know, not, I think a lot of it is,

is solely for the sake of capturing memories and really like trying to learn from them. But, you know, I think that as I have been, you know, on that journey of reflection, you know, some of the themes that stand out to me are that, you know, many people came before me, before us, that were like kicking down doors to enable this door that, allows me to get to do work that I love to even be open. And so this reflection has driven me to recognize that I work for a future in which our kids don't even know doors exist. What about you and now?

I don't think about the future in that, from that perspective, in terms of being notable or anything like that. I'm just trying to get the kids to bed and stay calm. But I do certainly reflection in terms of journaling, like Anna said. But it's been really helpful for me just to unlock some intuitive component of myself. And when I write about what I'm doing on a daily basis, and a lot of that astronauts, and I think people do in general, it helps me align my intent with that intuitive aspect of myself so that I feel like

you know I say things wrong all the time or make mistakes but at least my intent was always aligned you know in the right direction to help people to support those around me and so I try to stay true to that and that's that's where that reflection and things help that's beautiful so moving on because you both are the most fascinating people in the world and I've never felt more under qualified my entire life I don't even know how to ask questions I'm like usually when we do sports I'm like I know all of the things but now I'm like I know you're also a pilot yeah and a phenomenal one who's logged over a thousand hours this guy just started I got 80 hours so how close am I to be in like a fighter fighter jet or you're right there you just a few more or we could just give it a shot tomorrow if you want was that something that you pursued to add to your resume going into like NASA and your astronaut life or is that a completely separate hobby that you just fell in love with I it I fell in love with it when I was a kid my dad took me on one

flying discovery lesson in Minneapolis where I grew up, but he didn't have the money to support the rest of it. And that one flight was frozen into my brain and I always wanted to do it. And there's this thing about flying. You either have the money but no time or you have the time but no money. And so I was just trying to figure out how to do it. And in medical school, started kind of scrounging together and paying my way through getting a pilot's license. and it was just pure love in that respect. And it's been a lot of fun. And now I get a fly in T-38, which is really cool

and learn from what I consider the best pilots in the world. And NASA is so good about training how to do that, that the growth acceleration is super high in terms of flying and just working as a teammate in a two-seater aircraft. So it's really cool. You should come. I don't want to flex my my personal speed record is 210 knots what would you say yours is

I'm not kidding mock 1.2 but holy crap holy crap it's so ridiculous oh my gosh it's not like the combine the combine of flying or something yeah pretty much He goes faster. You're not thinking of, like the, you know, the videos they see of people experiencing G forces, and it's like 10 Gs in the face. Oh, man. Yes.

You guys have done that? I have done that. I've done nine Gs. And what's really important is what access the G is happening in, because if it's through your chest to your spine, you can handle a lot of it. It just feels like a lot of pressure. But it's from your head to your feet, you get really lightheaded because it's starting to suck blood out of your head. head and that's when it gets it gets tricky i remember in that g thing it sucked enough blood out of my brain and my eyes that i saw a checkerboard for a little while it was black and white

and everything went black and white so i think i was pretty close to what they call a g lock or a g loss of consciousness yeah but i know that from top gun yeah um this is silly but anecdotally like when Andrew signed up to get his pilot's license. Yeah. I remember being surrounded by so many people who were like, me, like myself, people would say you are crazy as a wife to allow, like, your husband to do something so risky with children. And like, we jump out of planes. We love adrenaline.

We haven't, you haven't gotten mock whatever. I don't even like being compared. Yeah. Yeah. But I am curious, like your relationship and your dynamics, like philosophy in life, I feel like you guys do very risky but very rewarding things, not just in your career, but in your hobbies, but just teaching your kids amazing lessons. How do you guys navigate when risk is too much and how do you teach your kids how to kind of like find that balance? Because you guys are doing death-defying things that have such purpose in the world.

Well, you know, I think that that it's always a conversation for us. We have a really open line of communication, and so we talk about these decisions a lot. I will say that we also believe that some passions are worth pursuing. And so there is good that comes from choices. And the world is full of risk. And so, you know, if you are thoughtful and you are intentional and careful about the decisions you're making and go into them understanding the technical background behind it, for example, like the trust that I talked about with our, you know, SpaceX and NASA, we have so much trust in the technical details behind it. It enables us and empowers us to make decisions incredibly well informed. and move forward with a lot of thoughtfulness in those decisions. And I kind of, the only thing I would add is I think about that JFK speech at Rice when he was going to the moon. And he said, we do these things not because they're easy, but because they're hard. And I think there are some things that are really worth doing no matter what.

And for me and Anna, it's this. It's important to us and it's important to society, we think. and it is worth the risk. Yeah, it's almost an insider outsider like fallacy or difference. I was just thinking about the stats of what the odds of becoming an astronaut and then the odds of you guys being married and it's like, yeah, they're minuscule.

But the pool, I guess, as you guys sat next to each other in NASA, if you look at it from the insider's perspective there, it's like, you know, how many people work at NASA? that pool goes from 400 million people in the U.S. to however many. And it's like, I think it's the same thing with my experience flying, where it's like, it's not that crazy. I'm sure you guys know, like, there's certain procedures. You've got to follow the checklist.

You got to do X, Y, Z. And anyway, it's like two different perspectives almost. Two of my favorite moments with Andrew Flying is his mom is adorable. But she about had a heart attack when she found out he was, flying through rain, and she about had a heart attack when she found out that you don't really have headlights when you fly in the dark. I just thought it was so sweet and so cute, but I was like, mom. Luckily, I love it.

But I think you get at a certain, a super great, great aspect of it is preparedness. You know, we, in everything that I imagine you're doing as a pilot, there's a tremendous amount of preparedness. That is an aspect of it. That's on the front end. It's the reflection on the back end. It's the learning and the constant growth. And I think we apply that same thing in the things that we're doing.

We train a tremendous amount to go to space to prepare, not just for the normal, but for the contingencies. And so I think, you know, that preparedness is a huge aspect of it. Which leads to risk mitigation because, Andrew, if you lost an engine, you would know how to land it in a grass field. And probably imagine to feel pretty comfortable doing that. so yeah i think we can work towards that end do you not not a t-30 no one's going to land a 3rd in the grass okay so speaking of training i want to talk about the physicality of it because i'm always super curious about that sean and i did this kind of a joke of a youtube video where we trained like astronauts yeah i love that i am i know that

Nail's done Ironman. You've done a full Ironman, is that right? I have, yeah. And you're talking about the GoRux. Obviously, you did that with Anna. What is the physical component to it? I want to know two things. One, like the genetic aspect. So with the G-lock, is there anything that you feel like you're genetically advantaged with in regards to dealing with things like that? But then also with your training to go into space, what does that regimen look like? What do you guys preparing for? from like a muscular skeleton standpoint as well as nutrition. Yeah. So I think the biggest aspect of the physical training for me is actually the mental

toughness aspect of it. It's that I choose to do those things because they put me in an uncomfortable position and exercise and training is a good way to get there really fast. You can get uncomfortable in a day or in, an hour depending on how you're pushing yourself and then you can apply some skills that are critical for the training and those are mental toughness things like is it positive self-talk is it reframing the situation or breathing to counteract stress an astronaut told us that when you make a mistake in space you have 0.3 seconds to have an emotional response and then you got to get over it

and you got to solve the problem and move on because it's that time critical and important and that kind of physical training trains the mental training that allows me to feel comfortable that I can do those things that there is a huge aspect of space that's totally different than gravity and just transforms people's physiology and that we could talk for days on that but some of the some of the things in terms of you're losing 10% of your muscle mass, your VO2 max is going down 10%, you're getting bone loss. It could be 3% a month if you're not counteracting it with exercise in space. Every single system of your body is altered by space and we're doing so much research

on it so that when we go to the moon, we go to Mars for three years or a long period of time, we can figure out how to do that better and actually perform in those environments. What about you, Anna? In terms of the physical preparations, we have done all sorts of training for spaceflight. So, for example, they put us through a centrifuge, a centrifuge on the ground, to teach your body those G forces that we were talking about earlier, what those will feel like on the ascent and the reentry profiles that we would experience in a spacecraft so that you adapt and get ready for that environment. But I would second Anil in that a huge aspect of the training is the mental side. And so the teaching of your brain to be ready to execute and focus under high stress, high consequence environments.

And so, for example, one of the things that we have done as a part of our training has been to skydive. We went skydiving with the U.S. Air Force Academy. And it's the only place in the world where you jump out of an airplane on the first time solo. And so they, but they enable this by putting you through rigorous ground training and you drill and memorize normal and contingency procedures. And then you're put to the test to make sure that you are ready before you go up in that airplane. But then you get up in that airplane and you certainly feel all of the, you know, the normal feelings that you would feel when you're about to jump out, which is a stress response and nerves. And but then you train your body by letting go and then you just move into execution.

mode and you go through the motions, pull your parachute, navigate back to the drop zone, land safely. And I would say that experiences like that really have drilled in us firsthand how to stay calm and cool under pressure and focus and execute procedures in those sort of high stress scenarios that one might encounter in space. Does that carry over into home life? Like, you know, during bedtime when the kids are screaming, are you able to separate emotions? That's a big harder. You know that. We're in the phase of our four-year-old where bedtime is like a 30-minute negotiation.

Oh, my God. And it's just like, by the end of it, I'm like, I don't know how to talk to you anymore. It's time. I think that's when teamwork comes in, tap out next person. I will also say, at the very most beginner, level one of the coolest things we've ever done which makes me respect you guys a million percent even more was we got to do the anti-gravity jet oh yeah that's so cool that was so cool i was just up there doing flips i think you almost puked your brain yeah it's normal it was so

sick yeah it's really i'm so glad y'all got to do that i think that's just one of the coolest things on earth and for what it's worth 70% of people that so in the ballpark park a 60 to 70, the fly to space get nauseous. So it's totally normal. It's normal. Don't worry about it. But I also didn't help. He was looking through a camera the whole time. It was a bad strategy.

You even have a tougher stomach that you were able to do that. Probably. I have I love that and I've never connected these two feelings before but reflecting on, you know, I was a long snapper which is we get, it's like a kicker. You get very few plays, but each one is

high pressure. And just that feeling of your palms are sweaty you got you got like that anxiety in your chest or whatever and it kind of feels tight but then breathing through it and like dealing through i actually feel that as a parent as well where you know our son is doing something risky but it's it's not dangerous it's just you know it could end with him bump in his head or whatever and you feel that sweaty palms tight chest and separating the emotions from the feeling is um i don't know if it's, I, I think it's a good thing to be able to have a grasp on that. But on that note, do you guys have counselors or therapy, like, for the mental aspect of things?

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Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency App for details. At NASA, we have a pretty robust, we call it behavioral health support team. And they're doing a couple things. They're both helping do research on psychological aspects of space. and there's just a lot of that ground to break and things to learn about. But they're also available to help us think through situations. And one of the things we is super important is just great teamwork at NASA.

So you have this team of people and you're going to be in the same small space station for six months to a year with your two other teammates, maybe seven other people. And so you've got to make things work. It's like a relationship. And how do you make things work? You already talked about some of those things, but it's really to have a good communication pathway. Even when things, even when they're small things,

it's worth bringing them up, talking about them, figuring out how to resolve the micro-conflicts because it builds skills in that team for the bigger conflicts and helps avoid those because you don't want those in a small environment. And the BHP people can be there to help you think through how to approach those conversations, be better at them. They go to a lot of our team training with us, and they help us use a feedback mechanism

and provide a structure that we can use in those kind of situations. This feels like it would help at home as well. Yeah, absolutely. I would say a lot of the lessons we have learned at work we apply at home. Uh-huh. And vice of words, though. Uh-huh. Write a book.

I want to learn more. Honestly. Yes. Well, it just seems like, it seems like there's such an amazing, like, holistic approach to what your guys do, which I feel like is lacking in so many other fields. But it makes sense. Like, you would want to make sure every aspect of your life is in control and a healthy situation before you were sent off to space. one more little tidbit that I find absolutely fascinating and I have a hypothetical question that is probably ridiculous

and out of some sci-fi movie but you're the first flight surgeon is that correct first flight surgeon at SpaceX okay yes how do you do surgery in space good question it's a misqueting term

the short answer is that it's worth noting that flight surgeons are doctors in the military or aviation so it's a misnomer it just means doctors so it's like how do you do surgery in space people have thought about this a lot and it's it's really tricky Mainly because it's going to go all, blood's going to go all over the place and you can contain the scalpel and all that stuff you talked about. Or how do you do it when you don't have an expert out there? So one of the more interesting things I've seen is if someone gets appendicitis, 1% chance on your way to Mars, let's say it's six months there, 18 months down and six months back, how do you, with a 15 minute delay, talk someone through doing an exercise like that? you can do it in stages so they have NASA has a great telemedicine team you can go up to the point of incision opening someone up and have a hold point there you need to deal with the blood and the floating and then you move to the next step and you get feedback and pictures and then you

move to the next step so you can do it in a stepwise fashion when you do that wow let's hope nobody gets appendicitis there was one guy in Antarctica in 19 1960 who got appendicitis and he took out his own appendix. He was a Russian surgeon. Yeah, that's crazy. That's nice way. Wow. Wow. What are you each most excited about right now? I think I am, you know, I am most excited about, I grew up, the daughter of a, geologist and a paleontologist and I um they took us on trips to explore the world around us by like licking rocks to identify them and things like that and but what they taught in me is a love of science that inspired me to go into science and so I think what I am most excited about is um getting

to share that love of science and our world are you. universe with the next generation. And, you know, as we were talking about, there have only been about 600 people to go to space. Less than 100 of those have been women. So the opportunity to the responsibility of doing it right and really helping to share that with the next generation so that they can explore further and not have any doors holding them back and just, you know, carry our future forward, I think is one of the things I'm really excited. Yeah, I'm also really excited about the future. The cool thing about being in space is you can see that science fiction unfolding and you're really close to it.

So NASA is going to the moon very shortly with the Artemis II mission and sending women and men to the moon. And then they're going to go to Mars. And that's not too far away. And there's this commercial program that's exploding with different companies and there's more and more opportunities for different people to fly to space so that I think in our kids era, when they get to the point, they'll have so many opportunities to do cool things. And as a doctor, the best part is with all these different people flying to space, that's more medicine, more understanding of medicine and microgravity,

of surgeries in space, of things like that that need to be developed, researched, and done. So the opportunities for the future doctors, medical students, residents, nurses, EMTs, just it's going to be unbelievable. And so I think that really gets me fired up. It might be overlapping answers, but why is space exploration specifically important to each of you? like what benefit can non-astronauts you know my feet will probably always be on earth's crust and what what does it do for the average person yeah for the average person it has a huge impact NASA helped cultivate the commercial crew program and what has that led to it's led to telecom in space that soon you'll be able to contact people and have internet access in any part of the world,

which is going to affect people's lives and health. You can do telemedicine anywhere to underserved communities in different places. It's lowered the costs of ultimately launched to space. So there's more satellites, knowledge of the Earth and knowledge about the climate. One of the huge thing that NASA does that a lot of people aren't aware of is study the climate and give us data so that we can make informed decisions about it. Most of the data you see or have is from those NASA programs. And I think one of the biggest things is just inspiration. I don't know. It's so hard to predict what pathway I would be on if I wasn't drawn forward by space and science as a kid.

I know there's millions of kids with the same dreams that are getting into things that are just going to benefit society. So I think it just pays forward. There's a huge return on investment that's probably hard to calculate. If you just looked at the raw numbers, it's probably like three to one in terms of dollars spent. But it's pretty incredible. I agree. I just Anna's response earlier about the realization that other people, people have opened doors for her and her goal is to do the same for future generations.

I think there is something about pushing the limits of what we're aware of or capable of as individuals, you know, like with your fitness and health routine, but also as a society with technology and all of these different issues you just realized. And it's, you know, it's, I'm kind of into racing. I grew up in Indianapolis with the 8500 and you look at the race cars. you're like oh that's cool but why like how does that impact my daily life and it's like well yeah but in in the art and process of preparing a car to go 230 miles an hour for three hours that that pushing of the boundary informs the less intense um daily life of of me was that a good analogy Sean

Sean a good analogy. I worked at Indy 500 as a doctor one. Of course you did it now. I mean like why wouldn't you? I'm not surprised at all. But it was great wilderness and like extreme medicine training. The number of Gs that those people undergo and the science that is implemented behind it to understand that makes the auto industry safer, makes health care. There's a lot of tentacles that you don't actually see from those things. I think it's a great analogy. I'm just fascinated you guys are the most fascinating amazing talented couple we have had on the show and it has truly been an honor to talk to you guys and I just keep thinking about our four-year-old daughter wakes up every single morning and coming from two athletes this is just different for us and we're trying to foster it as much as we can but she wakes up every single morning asking to do science experiments that's all she wants to do that's so cool we have gone through two boxes of 75 experiments from National Geographic already and we're on round five of them and it's just amazing to see you guys and to see how a fascination and a passion of science can truly change the world. So truly, thank you. I mean, you are role models to us, to our babies and to everybody. So it's truly an honor. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having us. I think we look up to you just as much. So it's been such our honor to get to talk to you and have this conversation. So thank you. Yeah, I agree. We like to listen to your show. And so I

think it's important to have these kind of conversations with different people and we can learn from each other. So it's awesome. Thank you so much. Well, whether you guys are on board or not, I'm going to call you friends. I'm going to brag about having you guys are friends. Thanks for the time. I am so excited to follow each of you and we'll be in touch. Maybe we'll have to have a follow on show. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you.